Will Technology Replace Us?

The theme of this article is directly linked to the reason I invited this great friend of the technology area and investor Mucio Cantarelli to be part of the Airbpo Team 3 years ago.

For some time now, studying the BPO market where AIRBPO operates and where I have been dedicating myself for 7 years, I have perceived this great movement of the market leaders migrating from the BPO (business process outsourcing) concept, where there is the replacement of internal workforce by the provision of services by external teams, to the concept of BPS (business process solution), in which case the technology brings another layer to the outsourcing business optimizing costs, time, workforce, processes, controls.

With the new existing technologies, being among them, artificial intelligence, R.P.A (robotic process automation), added to big data, analytics, Business Intelligence etc... We are facing an unprecedented technological revolution in the backoffice areas, where a large part of the office processes are subject to be replaced by machines. I confess that this statement made me wonder if the revolution would not leave me an obsolete professional, so I adopted the following posture: "Embrace the Changes. I always liked technology, but I wanted someone in the area by my side and that's how I convinced Mucio Cantarelli to join our team, bringing all the knowledge in A.P.R., Artificial Intelligence and other technologies, which we made inherent and integral in the current moment that the back, middle and front office areas of companies are facing.

Today, in addition to providing business consulting services in traditional areas, preparing business plans, financial feasibility analysis, company assessment, process mapping, business diagnosis, etc... and outsourcing of areas such as financial, administrative, billing, accounting, controllership, we have a strong support from the technology area that supports us both internally and with our customers, helping us to bring complete solutions both through trained professionals and through cutting-edge technology tools that aim both to improve the quality of the process and the agility and cost reduction.

It is worth mentioning that the main factor for us to have been successful in migrating from a BPO approach to a joint approach with BPS was the understanding of what we preach internally at AIRBPO: "Processes/People/Tools" as the iron triangle, the basis not only for our internal development, but also to bring effective solutions to our clients. And when we aim for a horizon with a good business culture construction, we automatically prepare ourselves for where we want to go, and that's what happened. Our team today has people skilled in the areas of engineering, IT, project management, Finance, Accounting, HR, Law, Marketing, and Sales, which allows us not only to make the implementation of new technologies, but to do this through an adequate mapping of processes, performing their improvement when necessary, as well as the evaluation and training of the people involved in modernization projects of the companies. We have developed partnerships with several software and automation suppliers that allow us to search and help our customers with the best solution for them, without also being tied to one or another specific solution.

The gathering of varied knowledge and the experience that we have been developing over the years has allowed us to develop a successful methodology for the implementation of new technologies that gathers based on the iron triangle and can be explained in a brief summary:

1- Processes - We map the processes in order to understand what the software will have to reproduce or complement and also to correct faulty processes before generating incorrect inputs in the software (avoiding trash in trash out).

2- People - We map the people involved and how their experience, motivation and training to be able to assist and support the implementation of new technologies and operate them as it should be done (many employees sabotage changes for various reasons or simply the fear of change or discomfort caused by it).

3- Tools - Developing partnerships with several suppliers but without having exclusivity with any of them, allows us both to know better the existing solutions in the market and to indicate the best solution. The choice of a technological solution needs to be very well analyzed, both for its functionalities, compatibility with the company's processes, as well as the supplier's service and its capacity to solve problems and update the software.

Functional unemployment is when not only a professional, but his or her profession itself becomes outdated or even ceases to exist. There are many who claim to be futurists with their own theories, adopting a pessimistic attitude and saying that machines will take away people's jobs and will generate great unemployment, but the reality is that countries with greater technological development are the countries with the highest employability and that over the years the jobs have been migrating. The bigger question is whether you are prepared for this next wave and for the technologies that are gaining market share and those that are yet to come.

As a professional I have also been updating myself in management methodologies such as Agile/Scrum, BPMN, management software, sales fronts, production blocks Updating and always learning in a world where innovation has become a continuous and dynamic process is not an option, it is an obligation for the professional who wants to remain not only employable, but also to stand out.

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If you want to talk about process modernization in your company, P.R.A., A.I., Big Data, ERP implementation, and others, send me a message and let's talk, it will be a great pleasure to exchange knowledge.